


bury me where the shadow ends

by fouryearslaterdrabbles (CheshireCatLife)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, I decided to take a note from the books, M/M, People Are Fucked Up, Season/Series 05, Suicidal Thoughts, although I haven't actually read them, because seriously, have people read the reviews?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:29:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCatLife/pseuds/fouryearslaterdrabbles
Summary: Quentin tried to make them give it a go. Eliot tried to fix things.It never seemed to work. Then again, who thought it would?
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	bury me where the shadow ends

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just about to finish season 4 of The Magicians and I just had to write something! Unfortunately, because I'm from the UK, I can't watch season 5 on prime just yet but hopefully soon! I might just buy it but god knows.
> 
> Enjoy, comments and kudos are as appreciated as always :D
> 
> [please read tags]

Quentin loves the darkness; the thick black smog that seems to descend when the sun falls from the sky. Maybe it's apt, for someone so apathetic to love the darkness. Maybe it’s causation. The sun can be healing, it’s violent rays as soft as satin. Darkness can only do ill, pierced on the best of nights by the dull stars, polluted by humanity. Maybe that’s just Quentin’s mind being morose.

He doesn’t know why it’s so bad tonight. He’s been doing well for a long time but…

No, he knows what this is. He _knows_. He just doesn’t want to. So, instead of the depth of caring he wants to be capable of, he’s been caught in the web of apathy. He stares at the blank ink sky and feels nothing, just deep-set exhaustion. This quest, _this fucking quest_ , was supposed to be his redemption. Instead, it’s ruined him. He’s lost people, friends and others. He’s lost a part of himself, although he doesn’t quite know what yet.

He’s made the sacrifice, and now he kind of wants to take it back.

They’re not finished yet. Magic still hasn’t returned and he still wants it, so badly. It may be the only thing that can pierce through the cursed indifference. He’s lost so much now that he won’t stop until they’ve won. This has to be worth something.

He sits in the small window alcove in the main room, revelling in the desolation the night brings. They have parties in here from time to time, but even Todd can’t keep up with Margo and Eliot.

Eliot.

No, he can’t think about it-

But he already is.

His name. The way he’d sat when they remembered, how his mouth had parted in shock. How Quentin had asked and-

He wants to die.

He hasn’t thought that in a long time, especially over something trivial. But he finds that he does. Maybe just as a reprieve from the pile of shit that keeps on piling on top of the other shit until he’s drowning in it.

He scratches his arm almost absent-mindedly, picking at the skin but never actually letting it slip, just feel the scratches that leave hazy white lines in their wake. His eyes still stare upwards, caught on a single shining star, the only one in the sky that’s real. That’s the unfortunate thing about magic. When he’d first gone to Brakebills, he’d looked up and seen a thousand stars and thought it was the best thing he’d ever seen. Now, he can see through the illusion.

He could pretend, but it just doesn’t feel the same.

“Quentin.” He knows that voice; it sends an involuntary shudder down his spine. It makes him pull his sleeves over his hands and curls up, arms wrapped around his legs in a desperate attempt to make himself look smaller. He lets his hair hang limply over his face, shadowing whatever horrific expression he must be sporting. “Quentin,” Eliot repeats softly. He hasn’t turned any of the lights on and he’s descending the stairs cautiously, hand clinging tightly to the bannister. It’s funny, Quentin thinks, even after being a prick, Eliot can be so unendingly kind. It’s his and Margo’s superpower.

“What?” Quentin sighs finally, holding his legs closer to his chest.

“I wanted to talk.”

“We don’t need to talk,” he argues obstinately, distantly aware that he sounds like a child. He can’t bring himself to give a shit. He knows even more that in a mood like this, he’s going to say something he regrets. “You can go.”

“I want to talk,” he repeats, like that makes it any better. Sometimes it does, Quentin’s always been stubborn, it often takes a few tries.

“I don’t.”

“Please. I know you’ll want to hear this.”

“It’s late.”

“ _Q_.” Fear chills him for a moment. Eliot shouldn’t cause that kind of reaction but he does. Quentin, for some reason, finds it so hard to say no to him sometimes. It makes him not want to talk at all. Finally, after a painfully prolonged silence, Eliot continues. “What’s up? You seem…”

“Depressed? Yeah.” It’s funny how blunt he can be about it nowadays, how he can huff a laugh every time he says it like it’s a joke. Jokes make it a whole lot easier. Some people say it still makes it a whole lot worse.

“You know you can talk to me-“

“Can you _stop_?” Quentin snaps.

“Stop what?”

“Caring? Acting as if this is all fine when it’s not fucking fine!”

“Q-“

“No, Eliot. Just no. I’m done with this. I’m going to bed.” He’s not. He knows he won’t be able to sleep, but he can stare just as well at the sky from his room than he can from the main room.

“Q, please.” He knows that tone; it stops him unwittingly in his tracks. It’s desperation. It’s begging, in the only form Eliot knows how. It’s a test that Quentin will regret failing.

He doesn’t think he cares.

Except he does. He cares _so damn much_.

“Come here,” Eliot beckons and he follows. Of course he does. Eliot takes a space in the window seat, moving his long legs to the side to leave a vacant space where Quentin had just been sitting. It’s awkward and their legs are brushing by the time he’s sat down but Quentin can’t help but feel a spark of hope. Or maybe not hope. But something. There’s definitely something. It lurks under the skin, sends chemicals racing around his body, it-

Fuck.

There’s silence; deadly and taunting, creeping into their space and filling it with a void they can’t escape. No one tries to. In the end, it becomes comforting, like a way to keep all their feelings bottled up and not have to approach them. The longer it stretches out, the more Quentin thinks he might be free. Free from the embarrassment, the pain, the heart-wrenching _love_.

FUCK!

“Q…”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t. You really don’t.” There’s a pause that Quentin doesn’t try to fill; the next words are on Eliot’s lips, it just takes him a moment to give into them. “I fucked up. Royally. Like really, really fucked up. More than I ever think I have before. I tried…to forget about it, but I couldn’t. And you know what set me off,” he lets out a broken laugh, loud and cracking, like the laugh of a dead man, “a fucking plum. A _plum_. And I remembered what I did. And what we had. And-“ he takes a breath. His eyes are shimmering and his breath is coming in dangerous staccato. “ _I love you_ ,” he whispers, tears pooling in his eyes like there’s something wrong with him. “So much. And I pushed you away because…because I was caught up in my own self-hatred that I couldn’t just face up the fact that we…we had…we had _fifty years_ together. And yes, maybe that screwed up our perception of reality but who cares?! It’s not like, fuck, it’s not like it’s hurting us. What’s wrong in just…being what we were. And-“

“You love me?” Quentin blurts, the words registering a minute too late.

“I do. You know how it was. What we had. After Arielle. Oh fuck, Arielle. You know I always hated her?” Quentin did but he’d also loved her. Saying that was definitely not helping Eliot’s case. “I mean, I know she’s- okay, I’ll stop now but seriously, I’m just…I’m trying to say…I always loved you. We raised a son together. _A son_. We literally gave him my last name. And- oh fuck it, can I kiss you?”

“You said we shouldn’t,” Quentin replies stoically, not moving. His heart is racing. Eliot loves him. He _loves_ him. But he’d also turned Quentin down flat, and there’s nothing he wants more than to do that in return. Something ugly inside him just wants to shout ‘fuck you’ and leave, pushing every bit of hurt back onto Eliot. But he knows it’s not going to work. He’ll hurt Eliot, but he won’t heal himself in the process. He knows that by now. But he wants to do it anyway.

“I know and I was wrong-“

“You broke me. You know that? I was doing…okay. And you broke me.”

“Q-“

“I just thought you should know.”

“I thought- I thought- Alice-“

“We had our thing. It was great. And it’s over now. There’s…too much there. So it’s over. I thought you knew that.”

“I know but-“

“But what?”

“I just…thought you’d eventually resolve things.”

“Why? This isn’t some rom-com, Eliot. This is real life. People don’t just get back together when shit like that happens. This isn’t some one-off problem. We both fucked things up, for good. That’s that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you probably should be.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fuck! You really want to ask me that again? _Again_. You think I was lying the first time?”

“No, I was just-“

“Yeah, I know.”

“I think I should go,” Eliot finally says, his face despairing. Quentin immediately feels sick; Eliot had come with such hope and Quentin had taken that and crushed it in his hands, relishing in the sharp cuts of its shards. He doesn’t answer Eliot, just continues to sit there, eyes staring up at the stars, wishing he was up there for a moment. Burning.

Just burning.


End file.
